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    The Stealer of Memories
    The Stealer of Memories
    The Stealer of Memories
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    The Stealer of Memories

    By Mois Benarroch

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    It has happened to all of us, we're talking with our brother of a childhood memory and suddenly he says, but you didn't do that, I did. And that seems normal. But, what do we remember when we remember? Scientific studies show that in less than twenty-four hours we have already changed the memory of what has happened to us. Perhaps our memories are not always completely ours, only partially ours, partly they are what others who were in the same place have told us, and partly perhaps they are memories of others that with time are infiltrated in our brain. The narrator of "El Ladrón de Memorias" does not steal memories, but he feels like a thief, because he is drawn to pulling at some moments other people's most intimate memories, only to realize that he can no longer differentiate his memories from the others. "The Stealer of Memories" is an autobiography of the entire world. 

    "Rarely have I had the opportunity to read a book on ebook format with the characteristics of "The Stealer of Memories". Mois Benarroch has the strange particularity of talking about anything and has a way of making you unable to stop reading. I have compiled many fragments of his book because they seemed interesting, intuitive and I think I almost believe that in fact the author is a memory thief:

    "…But there is one that doesn't go away. And it is that every text is autobiographical. Each character is the author. Nothing original in that. I know. But I'm not saying that every text is based on the life of the writer. Just the opposite. It is based on the not-life of the writer. The wife who appears in the text of a male writer is not the writer's wife, and vice versa, the homosexual will be the one who was not, the rich one is the rich one that the writer longs to be, if he is poor. The writer defines himself by what he cannot be. What he cannot be is not infinite. One cannot not-be just anybody. He can only be characters or people he is able to imagine…"

    I have read, as I said, other types of books, thrillers, suspense, mystery and action novels, but it is the first time that I find myself in front of a text that I can categorize as philosophical. I recommend it. And I hope that the author does not steal your memories. Well, in fact, this had already happened to me before with a book by Pablo Fergó. But this space totally belongs to Mois Benarroch." Blanca Miosi, author of "Dimitri Galunov".

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMois Benarroch
    Release dateDec 9, 2020
    ISBN9781393704072
    The Stealer of Memories
    Author

    Mois Benarroch

    "MOIS BENARROCH es el mejor escritor sefardí mediterráneo de Israel." Haaretz, Prof. Habiba Pdaya.

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      Book preview

      The Stealer of Memories - Mois Benarroch

      FIRST PART

      The autobiography

      The Stealer of Memories

      1.

      I fainted.

      I was riding on a bike downhill,it was my first or second bike ride, and I did not know how to master the pedals. The landscape reminded me that I knew nothing about this. I was eight, my hair was long. And Iwas running down at full speed. At the bottom of the hill, a car was approaching towards me, and pushed me back up the hill. Togetherentirely on the car, I jumped backwards, let the bike flying over the whole car and moved to the other side.And I fainted.

      But I was not on that hill, I was lying in a shoe store on Yaffo Street, a girl was looking down at me. It was the same cashier who I looked at for a shortmoment, but it was long enough to remember, while an older woman lifted me from behind and handed me a glass of water.Are you all right, sir? While I got up I saw vaguely the width of the pocket pants of the cashier and her right leg as she lifted the brown sock and it looked quite ugly. I saw she had a prosthetic leg. Of a sudden that notion of the skin was unrealistic and the color appeared lifeless, which immediately said that it was something that was not a skin.

      Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine. Don’t worry anymore. It must be something I ate this morning.

      The cashier looked at me while other parishioners came to see what had happened and the noise from the air conditioning entered the store and three or four tractors fled and they were preparing meter long new lines to shape the future of this city.

      I got up.

      Want us to call an ambulance? the older woman said.

      You can sithere,the cashiersaid while she was limping very slightly to bring me a chair.

      No, it’s nothing, I faint, these things happened, it's nothing serious, don't worry, I’ll see a doctormyself...Had they never fainted?

      I left without letting respond,I had difficulty passing the sidewalk in front. I sat in Café Verdewhere they served some of the best coffees in town.Iorderedanespresso ristretto, and explained (I always had to explain and reexplain) that I wanted a very short shot, Very short,and showed my two fingers so that he'd see that what I wanted was coffee, but not water. But it wasn't very successful to my explanation, and they brought me a nearly full cup of water, Oh, no!I already said that I requested a shorter one, Look, half the water, and less.Sometimes Iwould give up and drank it, or asked for a macchiato, it was easier to run long, but this time I needed a good ristretto. I requested the coffee with full body.

      The second time the coffee improved quite a lot, and I sat down to drink,tried to understand what happened to me in the store. It was something quite well known and surprising. I felt it was telling me many things and it's about something in my past.But what was it?What happened to me?

      After the coffee, I went to the bathroom and sitting there, the first thing I thought was that literature was driving me crazy, it was just an imagination of a future or past character, someone whom I was going to write, or worse, whom I wrote. I hated my previous books and from the moment when it was published, one thing that I wanted was to forget it. At first I took all my books out of my room so they would not bother me when I wrote, and after that, I gave them all, and now when they asked me if I had any copy of a book, I felt uncomfortable, but I said that I had only one copy of each book, that was not true. I did not have any copy of the seven books in my house. None. Here was what I said and wrote for the first time. And I did not know what to say when they asked me about my previous books, when they asked me about such and such a character, and even I tried to forget about the title which I could not. I remembered my characters as others remembered friends vaguely who had not seen for many years, the most likeable, I even missed sometimes, and some forgot them completely, Ah, yeah, the Mexican lawyer, what’s his name? Yes, it’s Luis Benzimra, or someone I don’t remember. People thought I was ready, but I was a lousy writer in the interviews.

      But this was not a character. It was a memory. I remembered something, something I had not lived. This was not my imagination to create the character in the next novel (which was always the first, my first novel) But what did I remember?

      I returned back to the hall of the cafeteria. A young student was sitting in my placethere and reading books in Levina. Shelooked like a French, and I was attracted to the French.In this country, every time a woman was attracted to me, two minutes later I heard her speaking French. I ordered another coffee, another very short, it was even shorter than the one for the other time,now they served me right.

      Could it be something like reincarnations? On more than one occasion I read writings on the subject, and about people who suddenly found themselves in an unfamiliar country where they were going for the first time, but they remembered that alley, and even something that were hidden in the basement or on the wall or ceiling or on the floor of the basement. A ring, an important manuscript, a few gold coins. There had been instances just like that.

      But on the contrary, I did not remember anything, the landscape of my imagination, the houses on the slope where my bike came down and I did not really knowwhy I felt the need of naming my bike, yeah, my bike was unknown. I had several bikes since I was young but none made me feel faint, nor I had seen in the memory. In my childhood, my father imported bikes and he owned a toy store. At the entrance of the store, there were bikes for children who were between ten and twenty, all of the colours. I remembered I was always riding bikes on holidays. But they were very different from the faint. How were they so different? The bike in the shop was old and rusty, as if it had taken from the basement of a grandfather, those of my father were always new. And that it was, it was my first time riding on that bike of my grandfather. Why did I say that I was riding? Then it was me, but who was that me.

      Then it was as if some memories of another personhad been transplanted to my mind, in my brain, a memory of someone had escaped from his mind and entered mine.

      Yes, but Ihad this feeling before. Yes I had. Suddenly, in front of someone, I saw some of his secrets clearly. When I was young, very young, I told a person, well, I saw your father onceput a cigarette out of your right hand.But how could you know that? It was the reaction. There were flashes of memories that came to me, but every time I tried to concentrate to find out what happened to the person in front of me, which usually it was a woman trying to impress me, saying a big nonsense, to which I replied, you say anything... . Perhaps they were intimate secrets that even they were aware, or were afraid that someone else would know, but I thought that was not the case, because when I came suddenly, the person in front of me remained slightly stunned and had no choice but to said what he said was true.

      It was that had happened to me, without fainting. For all thisthe feeling was well known asdéjà vu that of something had already lived.

      So they were the memories of other people,and they were not the imagination of a writer who was mentally disturbed.The memories of others, living or dead, were perhaps from others who I was,or others I'd ever be. Then what were my books composed of? Of what? From whom?

      I decided to light a purillo, and just before the match turned brown, the waitress came to tell me that smoking

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